jedibuttercup

So, I bought Ghost Story at lunch on Tuesday and had a reading party with

maevebran....

I'm not going to go into any great detail, but...

If Changes was about, well, changes? This one was about closure. It was very well done, and less difficult to process than its predecessor, however... I still felt kind of grief-stricken when I finished.

Harry just said goodbye to Chicago. For now, at least. And Chicago, more or less, said goodbye to him. So many threads and characters, even some only mentioned before in short stories, were drawn together in this one. We all knew he would establish a residence outside the city eventually after his Sight started coming in during Small Favor, but still... this was very much a "passing the torch before moving to a larger stage", and it stung. *bites lip*

It's not even hard to understand why Mab let Uriel liberate him as a "ghost" for awhile: until Harry had a chance to see for himself that the Justice League was maintaining things without him, he'd never be happy leaving his stomping grounds behind. And until his nearest and dearest had a chance to really register that he was gone and not coming back, they would be hampered in that defense, and no one wanted to let Chicago devolve entirely into chaos.

I'm really not happy with the Answer to the Question, but it does make in-universe sense, and underscores a couple of things: Harry can't get rid of his new title; he now knows he can hold it without dooming himself to a "southbound train" in the end (per Uriel); and even the enemy thinks this will make him more dangerous rather than easier to turn -- attempting to make him despair is their only angle. I foresee fireworks on a much larger scale in books to come.

Still. It feels like... we just left the human-scale world behind. I hope we do continue to get glimpses back at the Justice League, but given that they all now think he's D-E-D dead, and we only get things from Harry's POV, I find that unlikely. He'll probably let things sit that way awhile to "protect" them, like he always does.

I liked where we saw some of them: Butters, Bob, Maggie, Mouse, Mister, Daniel, Father Forthill, Mort, the Leanansidhe. I was kind of frustrated with some of the others, three especially: Murphy (though I get why), Molly (I get why, but where the hell is Ebenezar, why didn't he do something for her?), and Thomas (ugh, seriously?). Though I smirked about the absence of Marcone: yeah, no chance he'll be needing closure with that guy just yet.

Hopefully the change in venues will mean more curtains being pulled back instead of more avenues closed off. But I'm not holding my breath.

Anyway. I'll probably reread it and dissect in more detail later just what I did and didn't like, and did or didn't see coming, and where I see it going, et cetera... but I want to post before LJ crashes again, so. What did you think?